In addition to recent high oil prices and the need to develop alternative energy sources arising therefrom, global warming, which has been recognized as the biggest problem to the future of the Earth, and the like have called attention to the seriousness of energy problems, and accordingly, the roles of scientists on solving the problems have become important.
Fundamentally, various alternative and renewable energy sources that make use of solar energy, wind energy, geothermal energy, tidal energy, or the like are limited in that they either fail to produce a consistent amount of energy at all times or cannot provide energy at a desired time and place.
Therefore, the research for energy storage and transport, as well as the development of a novel energetic material, is increasingly important.
Nanoenergetic materials (nEMs) are composite materials consisting of a nanoscale fuel and a nanoscale oxidizer, and have a characteristic of releasing inherent chemical energy as thermal energy and explosion pressure in a very short time upon ignition.
Conventional means of igniting a nanoenergetic material include a mechanical impact, flame, electric spark, and the like.
Although such conventional methods of causing ignition mechanically, thermally, or electrically are highly effective for igniting a nanoenergetic material, those methods are much influenced by the external environment such as temperature and pressure, and always require the energetic material to be in direct contact with an external energy source for ignition. Therefore, use of such conventional methods in various thermal engineering systems is greatly limited.
In contrast, optical methods of igniting energetic materials can be applied in a variety of thermal engineering systems very effectively, and thus have advantages over the conventional methods of causing ignition mechanically, thermally, or electrically.
That is, when light irradiation is used for igniting an energetic material, direct contact between the energetic material and a light source is not necessary, and thus remote ignition from a long distance is made possible.
In addition, light sources for ignition have an advantage of being relatively less sensitive to environmental factors such as the temperature, pressure, humidity, etc. of the surroundings. The optical ignition of an energetic material requires a sufficient amount of light energy. Therefore, by developing a method that makes a relatively easy optical ignition of nanoenergetic materials possible while minimizing the required light energy, the scope of thermal engineering application of nanoenergetic materials can be maximized.